Senate Democrats took advantage of FBI Director James Comey’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday to press for any new morsels of information to support their theory that President Donald Trump teamed up with Russia during the 2016 campaign.

Comey did not offer much, declining to expand beyond his prior testimony to a House committee earlier this year that the FBI was investigating the matter.

“I don’t want people to overinterpret the answer. I’m not going to comment on anyone in particular.”

Democrats kept trying, often going well beyond the publicly known evidence. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) asked if Comey had ruled out anyone from the Trump campaign as a target of the investigation. Blumenthal asked specifically if Trump, himself, had been ruled out as a suspect.

“I don’t want people to overinterpret the answer,” he said. “I’m not going to comment on anyone in particular.”

Comey added he has briefed Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and ranking member Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) in private about possible targets of the probe. He said he would not comment about the specifics in an open hearing.

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When Comey testified that the FBI would follow the evidence wherever it led, Blumenthal again tried to sully the president.

“So, potentially, the president of the United States could be a target of your investigation into the Trump campaign’s involvement with Russian interference in our election, correct?” he said.

Comey said it would be improper to answer.

“I don’t want to answer that. That seems to be unfair speculation,” he said.

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Comey also declined to comment on whether Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein should appoint a special counsel to lead the investigation. Blumenthal voted against Rosenstein’s confirmation because he would promise — before even reviewing the information — to make such an appointment.

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) used his turn at the microphone to press supposed links between Trump associates and Russia.

“Director Comey, we continue to learn about ties between Russia and former members of the president’s campaign and current senior members of his administration,” he said.

Franken ticked off a list of names, starting with Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The only “ties” that have been demonstrated between Sessions and Russia, though, are two meetings last year with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. One of those meetings occurred in the office of Sessions when he was a senator from Alabama. The other was a brief exchange at an event that included dozens of foreign ambassadors outside of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.

“From an investigative standpoint, is the sheer number of connections unusual or significant?” Franken asked.

Comey declined to answer. He also declined to answer Franken’s question about whether Trump’s tax returns would be important to the investigation.

“I hope people don’t overinterpret my answers, but I just don’t want to start talking about anything, what we’re looking at and how,” he said.

Franken offered his summary of a report of the intelligence community, which he said stated that Trump’s business interests made him more amenable to dealing with Russia. Comey corrected him. “That was not the basis for the IC’s assessment,” he said.

Franken said U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that the Russian government intervened in the 2016 campaign to help Trump.

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“What I want to know is why they favored President Trump, and it seems to me that in order to answer that question of any investigation into the Trump campaign and whether they colluded with Russian operatives would require a full appreciation of the president’s financial dealings,” he said.

Comey said the conclusion was that Russia’s motivation was to hurt Clinton, not so much to help Trump.

As to how to combat foreign inference — which, presumably, should be the focus of a congressional inquiry — Comey testified that the best defense is vigilance of the public.

“I think one of the most important things we can do is to tell the American voter this is going on. ‘You should be skeptical. You should ask questions. You should understand the nature of the news you are getting,'” he said. “And we’ve delivered that same message to our European colleagues, and an interesting thing is happening. The marketplace of ideas is responding to this.”